Convenience center cameras

LISA HOBBS - News Editor

The Warren County Commission will meet for its regular monthly session this evening at 6:30 p.m. Among the items on the agenda is a transfer of $6,000 within the Sanitation Department’s budget.

According to Director Josh Roberts, those funds will be used to secure internet access at every convenience center.

“Once we move that $6,000 from part-time salaries out of the convenience center’s budget, we will be taking that into communications, which will bring the total in that line item to $12,000. It’s going to cost us about $10,900 annually for telephone and internet. Right now, we are spending $6,000 a year in telephone alone.”

Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation required, among other things, that all convenience centers have landline telephone access.

“If that wasn’t a requirement, we would have radios and we’d save taxpayers $6,000 a year. We have TDEC permit rules at every convenience center and communication landline is one of those requirements that we have to have to have the convenience center open.”

Adding internet access now at an additional $4,900 per year will hopefully give the department a competitive edge on securing a grant to add cameras at the centers.

“The grant provides up to $150,000 and it’s a 10 percent match. I’m not saying that the camera systems will cost that much, because they will not. We do not have our quotes back on the camera systems at this time. The grant session opened July 1, so we are in the early stages of that. We hope to have those quotes back in the next three weeks. We can then prepare the grant for application to the state.”

The cameras, if the grant is received to purchase them, will protect the county from liability if an issue were to arise at one of its 13 convenience centers. Roberts stated that other communities have benefited from them and this step is Warren County being proactive.

“We don’t have a lot of problems, but other communities have. We’re being proactive.

We are pushing this through the grant to benefit the taxpayer and to keep a burden for a potential lawsuit. We have talked to counties, who are touching us, that have the full camera system in, and it has paid off through their county’s attorney’s office.”

While some people think negatively regarding “big brother’ watching their movements, cameras in public spaces and at homes are increasingly being used for security purposes. When asked about that, Roberts stated, “This is not about watching people drop off their garbage. The camera systems are 100 percent about protecting the county, the citizens and our employees. It, also, holds us accountable. If we do something that’s not by policy, this will hold us accountable as well.”

Incoming director Tonya Herman and Roberts have been working alongside each other to prepare for his departure and her taking over the reins. Along with touring each convenience center, the two have been brainstorming about ways to keep the county’s sanitation department moving forward.

“We are now tracking numbers for the convenience centers to be able to tell where growth is happening,” said Herman. “We are implementing a call-in sheet, so I have their numbers every evening. With that information, we will know which centers need to grow. We had our annual training and we just implemented that.”

The grant period closes July 30. Announcement will be made in October, with execution of grants on Nov. 1.